NIKOLA TESLA’S SELF-EDUCATION (WITH REFERENCES TO HIS SCHOOLING)

2013

Configurations, 2013

By investigating the conflicted relationship between Nikola Tesla and the electrical engineering community, this essay explores competing representations of "invention" in the fin-de-siècle period. Drawing on the observation that the dominant paradigm of invention was entangled in various inscription practices, I turn to the case of Tesla to examine how inventions that circulated only as discourses were represented and legitimated in the scientific community, popular press, and literature. The essay argues that the rise of transmission media, such as wireless telegraphy, that challenged established conceptions about physical reality informed, in turn, Tesla's singular model of invention.

This brief, systematic summary, designed as a map, will familiarize the reader through quotations with one of the greatest minds of our history; Nikola Tesla's life and work.

5th International Conference on Telecommunications in Modern Satellite, Cable and Broadcasting Service. TELSIKS 2001. Proceedings of Papers (Cat. No.01EX517), 2001

Introductory Lecture) "Were we to seize and eliminate from our industrial world the results of Mr. Tesla's work, the wheels of industry would cease to turn, our electric cars and trains would stop, our towns would be dark, our mills would be dead and idle. Yes, so far reaching is his work that it has become the warp and woof of industry. The name of Tesla ... marks and epoch in the advance of electrical science. From that work has sprung a revolution." B. A. Behrend, engineer and colleague of Tesla, 1917

IEEE Technology and Society Magazine, 2017

2007

I attended the Marconi meeting last night, in company with illustrious society... Mr. Marconi gave the history, as he sees it, of wireless up to this date... [He] does not speak any more of Herzian Wave Telegraphy, but accentuates that messages he sends out are conducted along the earth... Pupin had the floor next, showing that not only was wireless a great achievement, but that it was due entirely to one single man who was too modest to have spoken in the first person... The only speaker of the evening who understood Mr. Marconi's merit and who did not hesitate to vent his opinion... was Steinmetz. In a brief historical sketch... he maintained that while all elements necessary for the transmission of wireless energy were available, yet it was due to Marconi that intelligence was actually transmitted... That evening was, without any question, the highest tribute that I ever have heard paid to you in the language of absolute silence as to your name. Sincerely yours, Fritz Lowenstein Marconi's talk, before 1100 members of the New York Electrical Society, was held on the very day the Titanic Sank. Frank Sprague, who gave the eulogy, "visibly affected Mr. Marconi when he credited him with saving the lives of from 700 to 800 persons." 2 Unfortunately, Marconi was unable to save 1500 other individuals including Colonel John Jacob Astor, who went down with the ship after helping his new bride board one of the remaining lifeboats. LITIGATION If ever an event epitomized the loss of innocence, the myopic condition of humanity, it was the sinking of the Titanic. Remindful of Tesla's own voyage, this watershed, recapitulated the story of Icarus, the prideful aeronaut who crumbled, because of lack of respect for his limitations. With Tesla's ponderous wish to transmit unlimited energy to the far reaches of the world and bring rain to the deserts, to become, as it were, a master of the universe, it was inevitable that he too would succumb. On the positive side, the tragedy prompted Congress to pass into law an act requiring the use of wireless equipment on all ships carrying 50 or more passengers. On the negative side, the event helped spurn a new wave of litigation causing company after company to elbow themselves into debt and melt away. Tesla was not the only casualty in the wireless war. Reginald Fessenden's concern "all but ceased functioning in 1912," due to his erratic nature, internal quarrelling with his backers, and "prolonged litigation." And Lee DeForest, who by now had nearly 40 patents in wireless, also went under, when he was convicted with officers of his company in a stock fraud. 3 Concerning Lowenstein, Tesla's former employee from his days at Colorado Springs, Tesla, for a modest royalty, was backing his protégé's attempts to install equipment on U.S. Navy ships. "He is much abler than the rest of the wireless men," he wrote his secretary, George Scherff, "[so] this has given me great pleasure." 4 The one edge Lowenstein had over Marconi, was the Italian's insistence of an all or nothing deal with the military. Either all ships were hooked into his system or none were. The U.S. Government, however, was loath to relinquish their upper hand, so Marconi had great difficulty integrating his system into the American military arena. Nevertheless, Marconi was still the only major competitor, so Tesla set out to reestablish his legal right. Conferring with his lawyers,

Tesla made several of the most significant discoveries in electric power systems and wireless signal transmission. These contributions were crucial in enabling economic and technological progress leading to our modern world. In his long creative life, he impacted many other areas in engineering, sciences, medicine, and art. This paper discusses examples of Tesla's work as it influenced others in diverse areas over a long period of time, continuing to the present day.

Periodicum Biologorum

A plethora of scientists gave their invaluable contribution to evolution of knowledge and technology. Among them, Rudjer Boskovic and Nikola Tesla are unique and exceptional due to their scientific originality in comprehending basic laws and concepts of nature and a great number of fundamentally original visions in science and technology. Rudjer Boskovic, a great scientist and philosopher, wrote works and opuscules in philosophy of nature, mathematics, physics and technique areas in his books, which in turn inspired and stirred an intuition of another great scientific innovator – Nikola Tesla. The two gifted, top-notch intellectuals may form a synergy despite the fact that the time distance between them spanned one and a half centuries. A synergy drew over the natural science and technique, inspired a genuine vortices towards a new visions in the mind and spirit of Nikola Tesla whose technical achievements enabled a new civilisation breakthrough. Paper aims to establish for the firs...

Nikola Tesla Museum, 1952-2003, 2004

On the basis of data from the Nikola Tesla`s Museum archives (NTMA), the activity of Sava Kosanovic as Administrator of the Inheritance of Nikola Tesla, along with the collection of material to supplement the fund, and promoting Nikola Tesla’s work, can be followed in the period 1943 to 1956. The archives and registry material collected in the course of the work of the Museum therefore provide data concerning the period from 1951 to 1956, when the complete legacy was brought from USA to Belgrade and handed over to the Museum to preserve, open, check and classify it.

Phlogiston, 2018

Relying on the perception that the field on which religious and entire spiritual and philosophical considerations come into contact with, and diverge from, scientific explorations – is the very field of the search for reality – this paper presents a follow-up to earlier search for an answer to the questions tackling the correlations which emerge through the interaction between creativity and education, the possible discoveries as an epiphany that opens an avenue toward new cognitive domains through interchanges, as well as the 'dialogues' born by encounters of individual cognitive spheres, the dialogues which focus on the harmony in nature, physical reality and deep insights into the philosophical and religious thought and spiritual realm. The paper considers the extent to which the mentioned inter-penetrations correspond to Nikola Tesla's notion of reality as one and merged (unus mundus), whereby some indicators are presented which suggest such a conclusion. In addition, the reminders are evoked of the conclusions from the author's earlier paper entitled Searching for the Reality: Contacts, Dialogues and Cognitive, Cultural and Sociocultural Mobility. Case Study: Pythagoras. (The paper is translated from Serbian into English by Angelina Čanković Popović.) Keywords: merged reality, unus mundus, harmony, dialogue, cognitive and cultural mobility, creativity and education, change of paradigm, Nikola Tesla, Pythagoras